{"product_id":"9780691253992","title":"\"I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer\"","description":"Author: Mary Beth Norton\u003cbr\u003eISBN: 9780691253992\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003eYear first published: 01 Jul 2025\u003cbr\u003ePages: 216\u003cbr\u003eFormat: Hardback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA fascinating collection\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cb\u003eof questions and answers  about courtship, marriage, love, and sex  from a seventeenth-century periodical\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe \u003ci\u003eAthenian Mercury  \u003c\/i\u003ea one-page, two-sided periodical published in 1690s London  included the world's first personal advice column. Acclaimed historian and Pulitzer Prizefinalist Mary Beth Norton's \"\u003ci\u003eI Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer\u003c\/i\u003e\" is a remarkable collection of questions and answers drawn from this groundbreaking publication.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn these exchanges, anonymous readers look for help with their most intimate romantic problems  about courting, picking a spouse, getting married, securing or avoiding parental consent, engaging in premarital sex and extramarital affairs, and much more. Spouses ask how to handle contentious marriages and tense relationships with in-laws. Some correspondents seek ways to ease a conscience troubled by romantic and sexual misbehaviour. The lonely wonder how to meet a potential partner  or how to spark a warmer relationship with someone they already have an eye on. And both men and women inquire about how to extract themselves from relationships turned sour. Many of these concerns will be familiar to readers of today's advice columns. But others are delightfully strange and surprising, reflecting forgotten social and romantic customs and using charmingly unfamiliar language in which, for example, 'kissing is a luscious diet', a marriage might provide 'much love and moderate conveniency', and an 'amorous disposition' can lead to trouble.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDelightful and entertaining, \"\u003ci\u003eI Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer\u003c\/i\u003e\" provides a unique, intriguing, and revealing picture of what has  and hasn't  changed over the past three centuries when it comes to love, sex, and relationships.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ships in 10 to 15 days","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46803887423646,"sku":"ADS-9780691253992","price":37.78,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0400\/9043\/5742\/files\/9780691253992.jpg?v=1778206818","url":"https:\/\/classicbargains.com.au\/products\/9780691253992","provider":"Classic Bargains Australia","version":"1.0","type":"link"}